Workshops

PAINT AN INTENSE
MONSTER PORTRAIT
Sometimes the best reference sources are staring you in the face. Here, a
powerful fantasy creature is painted by Dave Rapoza, based on himself
’ve always been a fan of artists on unreal creatures. You need to have a immediately. So if I’m having trouble

I who could render realistic

monsters. So when I got
serious about art, one of my
good understanding of the fundamentals
to bring your ideas to life successfully.
I’ll explain how I light and pose my Dave Rapoza
with teeth, I go and get some reference,
rather than just fiddling around. If you’ve
never done a study of teeth, chances are
goals was to bring my own creatures to character, and create movement. When COUNTRY: US you won’t be able to pull them from your
life. A lot of people who are starting out I’m working on a piece like this, I collect Dave is a
imagination. I don’t mean you should
tend just to pull information from their reference materials and keep a mirror full-time follow reference sources completely.
heads and forget how crucial research is. nearby. It’s crucial that I introduce life freelance Instead, study from life and then
artist. He
All my creatures are grounded in reality, into my characters, and if I’m ever stuck memorise how the things look, so you’re
spent a lot of
which is important when you’re working on something, I try to solve the problem time drawing while he less likely to run into trouble later on.
was growing up, but only
started taking it seriously
a few years ago.
www.daverapoza.com

DVD Assets
The files you need
are on your DVD in
the Dave Rapoza folder
in Workshops.

PHOTOSHOP
Exaggerated gestures Dropping shadows Adding colour
1 2 3
DEFAULT BRUSHES:
HARD AND SOFT ROUND
To kick things off I sketch out a Now that I’ve got a sketch I can The lighting looks about right, so
general idea on paper. I use pens to create work on the colour thumbnail. At this it’s time to add colour. I’ll usually use
really fast lines and exaggerate the gesture point I’m not worried about nailing the Color layers for the flat tones, such as skin
to produce movement. I want this guy to anatomy, just about establishing a mood and background. Then I add more
be twisting around and screaming over and making the image full of action. The lighting from the backlight and the light
his shoulder. I’m inspired by the cover of face has to be the focus, so I’m going to I’ve mainly been using from the upper left on his face. I do this
the Hard Round and Soft
the Scorpions’ album Blackout, and want pop it out from the background with by dropping in Overlays using a Soft
Round lately. I find it
to pay tribute to this awesome record. some backlighting. I also drop some grey most effective to learn Round brush set to 10 per cent Opacity.
Most of my artwork starts in this way – tones on the background using Multiply how textures actually I decide on a blue/orange complementary
work before you go in
I try to let all my interests influence layers and use the Soft Round brush with colour scheme to separate the character
and try to imply them.
my images. the Eraser to rub out the highlights. from the background.

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 In depth Paint a monster portrait

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 Workshops
Colour picker
Alt (Mac & PC
)
Establish the lighting Setting your
4 Next, I do some rendering. The
front button
tablet pen’s
to Alt makes
it easy to pic
k colours
main thing I want to do is further from your pa
lette as
establish my lighting. I use overlays to you work.
pop some highlights and normal layers
using various Hard and Soft brushes to
blend the tones I’ve laid down. To add
more character and motion, I add some
particle effects and spit flying around.
I also decide to surround the creature
with fog, to spread out the backlighting
and help define his form.

Finishing the
5 thumbnail
I decide that the background really needs
to be blue – almost neon, even. So I use
a Colour Balance Adjustment layer to
boost the blue in the highlights and the
red and yellow in the shadow. I also use a
Levels Adjustment Layer to increase the
lights and darks. After that I bump up
the orange light hitting his face with
another Overlay layer. I then drop in a
nice red gleam.

Pose for reference

6 Before I start on the final piece, I grab my mirror and take some
photographs of myself in a pose that’s similar to my character’s. I won’t
follow the reference fully – it’s just something to glance at to achieve
the right intensity in the painting itself.

Final line work

7 I create a new layer, fill it with white and turn the layer opacity down to
about 40 per cent, keeping my colour thumbnail on a layer beneath. Then I
create another layer on top of the white and using a basic Hard Round brush I
draw in the final lines, making adjustments for proportions. Then I put another
layer beneath the line layer and turn the white layer opacity to 100 per cent.

Thumbnail colours
8 Selecting the colours from my thumbnail, I fill in each
tone on separate layers. This way, I can make new Clipping Mask
layers with each, and colour within the filled space. I go with the
orange and blue complementary tones: this creates contrast and
enables me to pop the character out from the background.

Shadows and
9 highlights
Using the tones from my colour
thumbnail, I block in my shadows and
highlights. I use Soft Light layers for the
highlights and shadows. To stay within the
lines, I create a new layer using the Layer
Clipping Mask option. Since the colours
are on different layers, I can muddy up the
background without affecting the
foreground. After dropping a texture above
the background, I change the layer type to
Soft Light and adjust the opacity.

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 In depth Paint a monster portrait

14 AFollow the reference

At this point, I’m sticking to my
references
ferenc and my knowledge of lighting
The rules of to render the face and jacket. While I’m
composition working on this, I look at myself in the
Never forget that there
are solid guides to help mirror to see how light reflects off my
you nail compositions. tongue. I also start on his skeleton earring
The Rule of Thirds states – I’ve always loved those.
that you should divide
images into three
horizontal and vertical
sections. Where the
intersecting lines cross
are the points of interest.
Also remember the
Golden Rule, the
Triangle, Radii, Cross and
so on. These will help to
sell your images and if

10 Add impact
I need to give the image the same
Details and
12 movement you’re just placing your
characters and focal
points in random places,
impact
mpact that the thumbnail had. I tend to t’s imp
It’s important to establish your big shapes you’re missing out.
do quick thumbnails first because I want and colours before you get into detail. I
to know where I’m heading. This way, I start adding some scars above the teeth,
can quickly establish the mood, colours as well as his hair. Starting to get into the
and idea before I get overwhelmed. Then movement of the piece, I want his hair
it’s just a matter of getting the final image and the spit to be blowing around. At this
to a similar level. I sample tones from my point, I’m still adjusting to the contrast.
thumbnail and add them to the image. I I add another Multiply layer to the cast Easy undo
use a Hard Round brush with Pen shadow on his body in an attempt to Ctrl+Alt+Z (P
C)
Pressure turned on for the rendering. make his face stand out more. Cmd+Alt+Z (M
ac)
Go to Window
>Actions,
create one, pr
Getting references
13 Assess the piece ess this key
11 I start collecting reference images. r
I regularly flip the canvas
combo and as
sign it to
a tablet butto
n.
So
o far, II’ve just posed in the mirror and horizontally so that I can see my
taken a photo. Now I’m going to render a mistakes. If you don’t, you become
denim jacket and a bodybuilder. I model accustomed to looking at it a certain way
a denim jacket myself, but for everything and lose sight of the problems. I also
else I turn to the internet. I really want to rethink where the image is heading,
get the texture down, so I use a texture because I don’t feel that it’s particularly
brush for the denim. I darken the interesting. I decide he needs patches and
background to make the figure pop out pins on the jacket, which should also be
even more using Multiply Layers set to more frayed. The teeth need adjusting too,
low opacity (sampling tones from the and he could do with more scars and
image) and reflect the backlighting on the tattoos. I’m not sure what I’ll stick with,
character’s skin. but this adds character.

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 Workshops

18 Tattoo and texture

I find a fabric texture online, bring
it into my image and set the layer to Soft
Light. I turn down the layer opacity and
erase the areas around the jacket. The arm
looks a bit bare, so I use a Multiply layer
and add what could either be skin
marking or a tiger stripe tattoo.

15 Highlights and spit

As I’ve been working, I’ve thought about the final touches. Flying spit is one of
my favourite things to depict. After adding it, I paint in highlights to the nose, ears,
arms and teeth. I bump up the colours in the mouth and on the jacket using an Overlay Keeping it real
Layer. I also drop in a couple of gleaming lights coming off the hair. Once that’s all When I’m doing a
portrait of a character, I
done, I can start looking at the little accessories. refer to my plaster cast
of a man’s head and

16 Build the atmosphere

17 The little things shoulders. I’ll use a lamp
to achieve the right
The background is too dark, so I I add various pins and studs to his lighting, too. Assisting
use a Soft Round brush at 10 per cent denim jacket, along with a sew-on patch my imagination like this
opacity to add background fog. I bump up for an imaginary band. This adds to the helps sell the reality.

all the lights with Overlays, using the character and also
same brush. Now I go in and blend the gives me a chance to
background together, because it hasn’t drop some of my own
really felt like fog yet. I’m also starting to personality into the
get the motion from the thumbnail back. image. I find that this
attracts people to my
images – the more of 19 Radial Blur, Sharpen
and I’m done!
yourself you can add Now that the image is done, I need to
the better. After that, PHOTOSHOP bring back the impact of the thumbnail
I paint in the red CUSTOM BRUSH: using a Radial Blur. I flatten the image
gleam behind the JAIME JONES and duplicate the final. Then I go into
glasses. I really want Radial Blur (using the Zoom option) and
to pull the viewer to adjust the blur amount. Once it looks
that focal point, so it’s A texture brush that I pretty intense, I go in with a Soft Round
good to have high often use is this Jaime Eraser and rub out the focal area. Then I
Jones brush, which does
saturation amid dark great gritty textures.
flatten the image and use the Unsharp
and dull surfaces. Mask filter to sharpen it.

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